Personal Journals

If you know me or my work, you'll know just how immense the period of 2006-2007 was in terms of personal work and the impact that it had on me and my work, and in fact everything really that happened after that.

In 2005 we - Leigh and I - came up with the idea of creating a body of visual responses to the lyrics of a man whose albums we'd been listening to for several years - Sage Francis. It was as simple as that really, but nothing could have prepared me for the slog, the tears, pencil-wringing, hard work and challenges that the idea would bring.

On October 23rd 2006, in a draughty building leased by a charity in Brick Lane, E1 (now a Burlesque club and restaurant), Sage Francis performed to a pin-drop quiet room crammed with excited faces, the exhausted artist and boyfriend hiding in the wings, and thus 'If A Girl Writes Off the World' was born. The show lasted for just under two weeks and marked the end of a year of stone-cold solid work, and the beginning of a firm friendship.

Sage wrote about his experience of the show on this blog, and it made various press. There was even an interview. But the greatest impact it had was to give me a chance to prove I could remember how to make personal work, and not to be afraid of the most frightening thing you can imagine doing. Parachute jump? Well, you wouldn't get me doing one now, but there were moments leading up to the show, with costs mounting and blank pieces of paper staring back at me, and 300 people coming from around the world, that I would gladly have swapped what I was doing for that.

The New York showing of the work, logistically probably the most difficult thing we've ever pulled off, with the ground floor of a Chelsea market space all to myself and a massive cross-Atlantic crate of delicate work, led directly to becoming part of my NY agency Bernstein & Andriulli, and formed further friendships with Bernard Dolan, Anthony Saint James and many Sage fans and colleagues.

Sage and I have worked together on things ever since then. I would love to do more for him, but we are both busy making a living and the making a living and the projects we want to do don't always co-incide. When they do, the results tend to be...pretty good.

So this book is more than just a chance to reminisce and play with paper. It's 10 years since Sage's pivotal album, Personal Journals was released, the one that fueled the visual content of the entire show, and 6 years since the Manhattan show. The dates get blurry, but I know anniversaries have arrived, and this book was an opportunity to revisit some of the artwork which didn't make the final cut, or which formed a tiny detail probably unnoticed by most.

Designed by me and hand-built five minutes from where Richard III was found slumbering in his hidey hole, these are half lined paper and half plain, with 8 mailable postcards and gold and silver foiled covers, featuring a close-up of the pencil piece 'Runaways'.

If you want to buy one, they're in our shop
http://factoryroad.bigcartel.com/product/inkymole-sage-francis-personal-journal-double-sided-notebook

If you're thinking of buying one in the US, get one straight from Sage's shop instead - his are signed
http://www.strangefamousrecords.com/news/personaljournalsnotebooks/

Thank you Sagey Franks. I'll always be grateful.
x

13 Witches at 71

Saturday 6th saw the inaugural show in the Factory Road gallery - a new venture which gets its own blog from 2011!

For the last time me, Tom Hare, Ed Garland and Anthony Saint James resurrected The Witches, the body of work created originally for TBWA's Hallowe'en show in Manchester, and expanded on for its own show last October at the East Gallery, Brick Lane, London. Neither Anthony nor Ed could be present since they're in different parts of the world, but Tom came to dress the space with trees and help paint the faux-shadows behind them...of which one guest said he was 'taken apart' on noticing a crow without any obvious physical origin...

The space works exceptionally well as the gallery we intended it to be when we started planning a couple of years ago but, as with every show we've ever done, erecting it was a far more complex matter than just lining up a few framed bits and some foam-board labels. A week was spent plotting where things should sit, hang and be lit, the end result eased supernaturally into its space by Tom's trees, which appeared for all the world to emerge from the floor as if they'd forced their way through in the middle of the night. The soundtrack couldn't be live this time (we had Demdike Stare play live at the London show), but was a nonetheless murky compilation of Demdike, Boards of Canada, Marcus Fjellstrom and assorted grainy voodoo songs of bedevilment and woe.

Guests were treated to locally-brewed ale and home-made breads, made by Bob who installed himself in the kitchen for most of the evening. Danielle, who shall shortly make an appearance in another blog, worked tirelessly to keep the tea going and produced bowls of dal and piles of chappatis. There were many others involved in the smooth running of the evening, which was overall a very satisfying experience despite contrary weather and the dazzling rival charms of the many fireworks popping outside.

There's a sequence of shows planned for 2011 and beyond, so keep your eyeballs peeled for news and invites. We're excited.

The witches' poppets dangle asphyxiatedly from Tom's branches, Ed's stories and Mole's interpretations behind.

A long view of one half of the space.

This fella carved by Simon Wood greeted anyone reaching for food.

...and this is said carver, Mr Wood. Mr Wood, meet Chattox, who is made of wood.

Much discussion.

...questions were asked.

Here's a close-up of the missing crow.

And the emerging human hand branches.

Nesting, in front of work in progress.

Anthony's photographic pieces - Witches Chattox, Alice Grey, Anne Redferne, James Device.

The evil Chattox, head of the most heinous family and arch enemy of Demdike, here re-envisioned by Anthony as an inked-up self-carving young haggard.

And ponderment - the talented Mrs Tranter, who also shares a special relationship with the trees and whose work is already starting to grace our home.

Bob's Bakery.

This shawl, in constant use in winter months, was crocheted by my Mum in 1979.
Top Shop Vintage can bugger off: this is an ORIGINAL!

The Witches

We've just come back from hosting The Witches at the East Gallery in Brick Lane. You'll know this of course as I've been talking about little else for the last six weeks or so!

Never been a team to do things by halves, we firmly believe in giving anyone who comes along - clients, family and friends - a good show. I'm usually to be found wide awake in the small hours for a week or so beforehand, worrying about whether the work is OK, is there enough of it, will everyone enjoy it, will it just look weird? and so on. A day or so before, most of the logistics are usually sorted and by the time it comes to putting the show up - well, you've done everything you can by then.

I needn't have worried. The Witches opening night was a lovely, chatty, buzzing evening where new faces were put to familiar names, and old friends, family and colleagues mingled and enjoyed the medievel-inspired tasties and plentiful Pendle Witches Brew, which was supplied by the amazingly generous David Grant of Moorhouses Brewery, up in Burnley. Chef Jed Smith, who had been left largely to his own culinary devices and has catered admirably for Inkymole events before, produced tiny bowls of hot pumpkin soup decorated with popcorn which surprised everyone, and was gulped down. The same went for his delicious almond tasties and 'Satan's Seitan' - tiny triangles of fiery home-made seitan, all served by Kate on little black trays. Both Jed and his team Clement and Kate get a big hot-handed hi-5!

Sean Canty aka Demdike Stare on music had been instructed to keep it dingy, and darken the room he certainly did - but in a retro-vampire-BBC-sound-effect-sub-bass-where's-that-noise-coming-from? kind of way. Having travelled alone due to the other half of Demdike being hours away from becoming a father, he steered the tuneship solo. The illustration, photography, words and wicker combined with these and the many glowing pumpkins and candles to create a gratifyingly seasonal atmosphere. Outside was eerily warm - I travelled to the gallery in just a corset and skirt (oh, I did actually have some shoes on), and felt not a twinge of autumn chill - and this meant people were to be found hanging outside the gallery and chatting in a summer-eve manner.

The most memorable thing for me will be the learning curve of working with several other people - Tom Hare, the willow artist, Anthony, the photographer, and Ed, who did the writing. I'm an uneasy collaborator, finding my work comes most naturally when in solitude and with plenty of direction, and although there were the logistics of being separated by anything between 3 and 3000 miles, we drew together a body of work which many commented 'hung together' perfectly, the pieces of which reflected and expanded on each other to reveal more and more. Other visitors commented that 'there was such a lot to see' and 'so many stories' and indeed, I'd put a lot of work into making sure the show flowed and the narrative was clear and plentiful.

Cards were taken, phone numbers exchanged, emails written down, meetings and liaisons organised.

There is already, of course, a list of things I'd do differently next time (and there is bound to be a next time!) but this show was most satisfying. It would only have been half as good without all the people who came along to it both on the opening night and down the week, so a warm and pumpkin-sticky 'thanks again' to everyone who did!

Photos: http://www.theyallcameback.org > click 'The Artwork' tab

What's next?

Tom Hare - currently building a 12ft reindeer for Westonbirt Arboretum, and showing again at Kew Gardens in 2010.

Anthony Saint James - working on video production back home in NYC, and undertaking fatherly duties from Match 2010.

Ed Garland - writing things that sound like this, and probably going abroad for more mind-widening soon.

It's getting a bit bonkers here

The blog silence can be explained by a huge amount of disruption at home (which is also work as many people will know) - illustrations have been carried out to the noise of banging, scraping, drilling, sawing, bashing and stair-stomping.

Still, work must continue apace as The Witches show opens this week! I'm never going to be a proper 'gallery' artist, and these events make me incredibly highly strung for a period of several weeks. Sometimes when things are getting hairy I think 'why, no really WHY, am I doing this to myself?'

The answer is always the same. Because I can, and I should. It's exactly because they shove me a bit rudely out of the usual Inkymole comfort zone that I do them. Bringing people from 3 to 3000 miles away to take part feels like a massive responsibility, but when it's done, I feel like I do when I've run for much longer than I have before - surprised I'm still intact, and surprised at how much I've stretched myself.

Luckily with this show, I've also enlisted the help of Tom Hare, Ed Garland, Anthony Saint James with Demdike Stare for musical accompaniant and 16th Century inspired vegan food designed by Jed Smith - who by day currently works for a famous Michelin starred West End restaurant.

The opening party is on the 29th of October and starts at 6pm until 9pm. The show runs until the 5th of November.

You will come along, won't you?

A Book About Death

My friend Anthony Saint James and I have contributed a piece to this exhibition opening in New York on Thursday 10th September.

Though I enjoyed quoting the author of my favourite book in the universe, this image is really ALL about Anthony's photograph. (There is more of this to come - but more on that over the coming weeks). On the back is a quote by another one of my favourite writers, Buddy Wakefield, whose line was chosen for its interesting parallel with Emily Bronte's quote and the world she inhabited - every day lived overlooking a graveyard and watching her sisters, brother and half the village succumb to consumption in their twenties.

Death though was virtually an additional family member in Haworth during the 1800s. Looking constantly over the shoulders of the villagers, down whose only street ran the toxic effluent of a pre-drainage era, Emily must have looked rather less fearfully into the grave than we would, as of course, she was off to meet her sister Anne and two older siblings before her. Perhaps death is the great big lie-down after the graft of a long life well lived - as opposed to a constant threat or thing to be feared.

And the notion that the earth would actually quite like to hang on to us a bit longer is charming, if not another good reason to be buried in the earth coffinless and un-embalmed with a sapling and a microchip over us (my plan; yours might be different).

So 'let go', as Buddy says. Because I don't know about you, but 'I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of not living'. (Exodus 77).

The show is on till 22nd September, and you can read more about it here.

(Oh come on, after the pretty fruits and records, you were expecting some darkness, surely?)

Barron Storey at the Society of Illustrators

Me and my friend Anthony Saint James (a gentleman of lenses as opposed to pens) were looking around the Society of Illustrators last week (I was checking out the Members' Gallery as I'm having a show there next year) when we saw that Barron Storey's 'Life After Black' exhibition was being put up in the main gallery downstairs.

With the show just about ready to open, Mr Storey himself was there, pasting pieces into little books and directing. But what we didn't know was that this was a show absolutely stuffed full to the gills with sketchbooks - and only sketchbooks - of all sizes, packed with minute drawings, pen and ink, notes, faces, type, motorbikes, trees...I've never seen anything like them in my life. And d'you know what? You could TOUCH. As it dawned on us the purpose of this show was To Touch (or rather to rifle excitedly through page after page) there was an almost audible sigh of relief so big that we needed to lie down for a minute.

They are, in the authentic sense of the word, awesome; just writhing with thoughts and humming brain activity. You do get the feeling that if he didn't do these, he would just grind to a halt. I had the pleasure of talking to him briefly and got the impression of a straightforward, kind, passionate man with pencils where fingers should be, dreaming in pictures and paper.

If you get the chance to go, you must. His work reminded me that sketchbooks are not just for Christmas, they're for life

Thumbs courtesy of Anthony!